I enjoy trading card games a lot, and was wondering if there was such a board game that could capture that feeling at higher player counts (without spending money on booster packs)
Think Radlands, but for 3-4 players
Take a look at Res Arcana! Everyone gets a small deck of cards, a few resources then u choose one of 2 (out of 8 different) mages and battle for the places of power in the middle of the table!
For a while my friends and I were really into Smash Up which tried hard to simulate the TCG feeling without everyone needing their own deck and boosters.
Basic premise of the game is your deck is comprised of two different factions, and you play minions to attempt to capture the locations in play. But then all of the cards have specific rules to add twists to things. It’s been a few years since I’ve actually played it. The one thing I do remember is that you’ll need to be ready to make judgements on how the rules work a lot.
And since it’s been out for like a decade or more now, it has a bunch of expansions. And it’s designed for up to 4 players, so it’s nice to have expansions so the number of faction combinations increases exponentially and it doesn’t feel like everyone is always playing the same strategy over and over.
Consider Sentinel’s of the Multiverse for something different than what’s suggested so far.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/102652/sentinels-multiverse
Instead of going head to head against each other, all the players are heros joining forces against a comic book villan. The different decks are flavourful and most play in a unique way. And it feels like an epic fight against evil.
Shards of Infinity, or perhaps Dice Throne?
I personally prefer DT as a 2P game, but have played it 3-4 players on occasion and it still plays great.
I never tried it but check out Millenium Blades. It’s a meta boardgame that emulates the feeling of a CCG. I always found to concept quite interesting but the anime artwork is a huge turnoff for me personally.
